HBO released the best look yet at the new season of Thrones on Tuesday (March 8), in a trailer that starts off with the bad news right up front... Jon Snow is indeed very, very dead.

"He's gone," Davos Seaworth says, as the camera swoops down upon Castle Black, landing on Jon Snow's bloody body still lying exactly where we last saw him in season five. There's no bait-and-switch, either, as Jon's lifeless corpse is glimpsed a few more times throughout the trailer, his dire wolf Ghost right at his side.

"I've never been much of a fighter," Davos says at the end of the trailer, as he pulls Jon's Valyrian sword Longclaw from its sheath, standing beside the fallen Lord Commander's body. "Apologies for what you're about to see."

No apologies necessary, given the bountiful amount of information contained throughout the trailer, if only on a visual level: Bran Stark and the Night's King, ruler of the White Walkers, are seen side by side at one point, for example, in a moment that's sure to stoke the fires of fan speculation for the next several weeks.

In another scene, Jorah Mormont and Daario Naharis ride out to the countryside outside of Meereen, discovering Daenerys Targaryen's abandoned ring in the great grass sea. Dany herself is seen walking among impoverished individuals; has the Breaker of Chains been enslaved by the Dothraki, or worse?

Meanwhile, in King's Landing, the High Sparrow's Faith Militant army makes their move against Cersei Lannister and her brutish companion, Ser Robert Strong -- the new alias of Gregor "The Mountain" Clegane.

The violence of the Seven Kingdoms invades the real world on April 24 when Game of Thrones returns -- and even though Jon Snow will be a cold corpse in that moment, it's not too late to hope for the Lord Commander's eventual return.

Check out more "Game of Thrones" action in the gallery below!

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